Expro completes first subsea abandonment intervention riser project in Mauritania
Oilfield services company Expro has successfully completed an integrated Plug and Abandonment (P&A) contract valued at more than $20 million for PC Mauritania 1 (PCMPL), a subsidiary of Petronas that manages offshore operations in Mauritania, West Africa.
The well intervention scope of the P&A project utilized Expro’s integrated Open Water Intervention Riser System (OWIRS) for successful intervention and barrier placement on 15 wells for PCMPL’s Chinguetti Field Phase II operations. The system’s compact nature provided considerable time savings by retrieving the subsea trees without an additional run. This was further enhanced by the efficient parallel deployment of the OWIRS and rig blow out preventor from the auxiliary well and primary well centre through the rig’s dual derrick capabilities.
Expro’s onshore project management team, based in Kuala Lumpur and locally onshore in Mauritania, supported PCMPL throughout the project planning and execution phases. Expro provided a range of integrated services, including the subsea well access system, surface flowhead, umbilicals, topsides control equipment and installation and an intervention workover control system (IWOCS) package for controlling both the OWIRS and Xmas tree systems. Worldwide Oilfield Machine (WOM) worked closely with Expro as an alliance partner providing the subsea well access system and a technical support team.
“The OWIRS system is a highly reliable compact system with an extensive track record in riser to surface subsea well access operations. This system performed over 250 functions during the project with 100% operational uptime and no non-productive time (NPT) incurred. To further demonstrate its reliability post operation, a gas testing program of work was successfully performed on completion of the 15 wells, prior to any post job maintenance being carried out and before readiness for the next project,” said Graham Cheyne, Vice President of Well Access and Subsea at Expro. “This campaign was our first venture into the intervention riser system market. Despite the logistical and HSE challenges created by the global pandemic, we are proud to have demonstrated our technology’s success and integrated ability for these types of subsea P&A operations, supported by our team’s extraordinary performance, commitment, flexibility and dedication to PCMPL.
